Icarus
by AnonymousCreep
Summary: After a sharp pain wakes him up in the night, Seth finds a surprise in the mirror. Based off of an interview from the NXT days.
1. Upside Down

_Ouch._

The sun hasn't even begun to peek through the curtains when Seth wakes up grumpy from a suddenly fitful sleep. There was still another hour and a half before he really had to be awake, up and moving, rousing Roman from sleep and fighting tooth and nail to get Dean up and out of bed, but it seemed that Seth wasn't about to spend that precious time resting.

His back was hurting. It wasn't like the dull throb of a bad fall on the job, where the whole expanse of his shoulders and hips felt like one big bruise-this pain was sharp and acute, narrowed down only to his shoulder blades, like someone had pinned them with knives. Seth grunted as he rolled from his back, propping himself on his elbows and glaring at the neon green numbers of the digital alarm clock on the bedside table through his sleep-bleary eyes.

_5:45_.

He sighed, quietly so as not to wake the others and shimmied out of bed. Dean was snoring softly on the adjacent bed (the guy slept on his face; how was he even able to breathe, let alone snore?), Roman taking up the one in the other room, breathing quietly (to Seth, it reminded him of a hibernating black bear), and as Seth padded across the floor to the bathroom, neither of them stirred. For nights like these, Seth had learned to keep a bottle of ibuprofen to dull the pain until he could get some proper treatment, mostly to be taken on car rides and the like. He slipped into the bathroom and closed the door before turning on the lights, squinting at the bright intensity of the fluorescent bulbs.

His bag lay on the floor under the sink, next to Roman's- Dean's was thrown haphazardly at the foot of his bed outside-one pouch on the side already unzipped and the white cap of the tiny pill bottle poking out. Roman had probably used the bottle beforehand (he'd taken a pretty nasty bump that night) and forgotten to close the bag. Seth leaned down and snatched the pill bottle out, wincing as his shoulders stretched and the pain raced to spread across them. He was already forming a plan to further relieve the pain-running one of the white washcloths under the sink using water as hot as he could stand and then wringing it out to make a makeshift heat pad for his shoulders-when he straightened and actually looked at himself in the mirror. The minute he caught sight of his reflection, he froze, plan lost, any traces of sleep evaporating completely.

Seth slowly reached up and combed his fingers through his hair, from root to end. His hand came away with so many soft, downy feathers that it looked like a pillow had exploded over his head. Feathers?

Did his pillow have a tear in it somewhere?

He shook out his hair for good measure and a shocking amount of the tiny white feathers came tumbling from it, dancing to the floor around his bare feet. One had even found itself clinging to his beard. Grumbling under his breath about cheap pillows, Seth unscrewed the bottle cap and downed the pill dry. He reached back then, rubbing grimly at his aching shoulder blades, and suddenly froze. Grimacing as he stretched his arm further to reach, he felt an icy sensation creeping up his spine as his fingers ghosting over a lump jutting from his shoulder. It was sensitive to the touch, felt rubbery and smooth, roughly about the size of an egg, and felt as though it were covered in the same downy feathers he'd found stuck in his hair.

Seth's heartbeat skipped frantically, his still-sleep mind clouded with fatigue and fear of _what-the-hell-is-that_, and he pursed his lips tightly as he slowly turned in the mirror.

It was kind of…gross, actually, the fleshy little stumps that stuck out from his shoulder blades like deformed knots. Despite being covered in the tiny feathers, Seth could see the way they grafted perfectly into the rest of his skin-no seams or healing scars that told him how they had been put there-albeit being a little pink like new skin tended to be. But how had they gotten there? They hadn't been stuck there when he'd showered earlier (well, actually, they had been-they were only two little pinkish spots on each shoulder blade at the time-but he hadn't noticed), and either Roman or Dean would have told him if they'd noticed them before he'd crawled into bed.

But there they were, on either shoulder, pink and new and young.

At least he knew where the pain was coming from.

It figured the one time that Dean actually woke up on his own Seth would be in some sort of predicament. Never mind that it was only to piss, he was awake and groggy, and in a one-track mood: _get in, use the bathroom, get out, sleep_, and Seth was about to get in the way of that. He stumbled to the door, only really registering the occupied bathroom after standing before the door and seeing the thin strip of light peeking from under the jamb. He shut his eyes and exhaled deeply. "Seth?" he called in a low voice that was vaguely annoyed and weighted with sleep, and leaned his forehead against the door with a soft thump.

Inside, Seth jumped, tearing his eyes away from his reflection and swearing under his breath. He was fully awake now after having been startled by the appearance of stumps. "Dean? You're awake?"

_Of all the times!_

"Affirmative, Captain Obvious," came the sarcastic reply. "You got clothes on?"

Seth furrowed his brow. "Um…yes?"

"Great, then I'm coming in."

Seth was pretty sure that he'd shut Dean's fingers in the door with the speed he'd flown from his perch on the sink to the door, throwing himself against it and holding the plastic knob, wincing as he heard Dean thump against it when it immediately slammed back in his face. "Seth, what the hell?" He wasn't shouting, only raised his voice to normal speaking level, still gruff with sleep.

"What do you want?" Seth called from behind the door, probably speaking louder than necessary. "Christ, to use the bathroom, why else? What are you even doing?" Dean grumbled back. Seth looked around the bathroom, still pressed against the door, and his eyes fell on the light switch. He quickly turned out the lights, wrenched the doorknob, yanked the door wide open, earning a startled yelp and a strangled swear from Dean as he fell into the open bathroom, and scrambled past in the darkness. A glorious tidal wave of expletives saucy enough to make a sailor nervous came tumbling from Dean's mouth, only muffled slightly by the bathroom door closing behind him and the bed sheets as Seth burrowed under them.

Admittedly, he felt kind of childish hiding under the covers like that. Like there's a monster in the bathroom (to be honest, he wasn't wrong) that would eat him if he caught him. He sighed into the pillow, wrapping his arms under and around it, the cool seeping across the warm skin of his forehead. He couldn't say that he was overreacting, because if _you_ woke up with feather-stumps on your back, wouldn't you raise Cain to your deformed reflection too? But still, that didn't dispel the heat of self-embarrassment from his already rosy face.

The bathroom door opened with a loud_ thunk_ and Seth immediately shrank under the sheets. He could hear Dean's heavy footfalls as he plodded back to bed and as they neared, a heavy-handed fist collided with his back, right between his shoulders. Seth practically ate the pillow to keep from screaming.

"Ass," Dean mumbled and went back to sleep.


	2. Coming Down

For once in his life, Seth despised the gym for all that he was worth. He was sitting with his back to-not touching-the blue concrete wall, water bottle in hand, humming at the stiff pain in his shoulders. He hadn't slept a wink since he'd woken up to the little stumps on his back, mostly lying awake on his side watching the clock tick away the time. It had still been a struggle to get Dean up, despite him having been awake an hour prior, and with Seth still wired and exhausted-at the same time-it hadn't been any easier than it would've been had he been fully rested. It was_ worse_.

Still, they'd all made it to the local gym in one piece, Roman taking Seth's place as the one in a consistent fitness haze as he worked his way from one piece of equipment to the other, and the others lagging behind. Even Dean was moving around at a better pace than Seth was, and _he_ was the one who needed the most prodding to even roll out of bed to get there in the first place. Now, he wandered over to him, tapping his foot with his sneaker. "Hey," he called. Seth craned his neck to look at him. "Hey."

"You sick or something?"

Seth reached up and swiped at his sweaty forehead with the collar of his t-shirt. "Nah," he replied, shrugging, "I'm fine."

"You keep stopping in the middle of reps."

Seth had hoped no one had noticed. He had to keep stopping because the sharp pain in his shoulders had nagged him to a pause until the throb had subsided to a more manageable level. Then he did the same thing over again; _start a rep, freeze with pain, wait, repeat_. He was never going to get anything done with them stuck to his back like this. He'd vaguely thought of trying to pull them off, absentmindedly hating them as he tried in vain to power through a set of lunges, but then he remembered how sensitive they had been whenever he or anything else came in contact with them. What if they were made of bone? Muscle? Cartilage? He wasn't sure, but he knew he wasn't ready to take that chance yet.

He'd worn a shirt to the gym today, kept it on through his (what barely passed for a) workout. It felt like he was baking in a furnace, or wrapped in a blanket in the middle of August. It was actually Roman's shirt that he'd borrowed, grey and a size bigger to make sure the nubs were well enough concealed-his shirts were all a little tight and fitting and would have hurt him when they brushed down over his shoulders. It was hell.

"I'm not really feeling it today."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "You sure you aren't sick?" he said again, squatting beside Seth and pressing the back of his hand to his forehead. Seth rolled his eyes and batted his hand away. "Seriously; when do you ever not feel like working out?"

"I'm just tired."

Dean shrugged. "I can understand that. And with that, I return to the hotel. What? I'm tired too, and if the fitness nut himself isn't even feeling up to this crap, then it must be a sign." He grinned lopsidedly and slapped Seth on the back between the shoulders. Seth masked his whimper as a sharp cough, trying to play off the pain for secrecy's sake. "Dusty," he mumbled to Dean as a means of explanation. Dean shrugged and moved to wander off. The moment he was gone, Seth brought his knees to his chest and screamed into his shorts.

Surprisingly, he felt a little better after that.

.

.

.

Seth hummed quietly as he lay on his bed. They had a day off until the next Raw show and he was going to spend it trying to stay out of as much pain as possible, and that meant lounging around like a sea sponge. Normally he would be too energized to just spend the day lying in bed, but today, it felt like all his energy and strength had been drained from him, all of the twenty-seven year old vivaciousness having been replaced with an eighty year old's failing health and stamina.

He was trying to focus on breathing, in and out, in and out, but found it easier to doze while he lay face down at the foot of his bed. His socked feet hung over the edge, his arms splayed to either side of him, he looked like a murder victim, barely moving and just as quiet, save for the occasional small hum as the chorus of his favorite song cycled through the earbuds stuffed in his ears. He had nearly fallen into the clutches of full sleep when suddenly pain began shooting everywhere at once, pulsing from his shoulders in time with the fists raining down on his back. He cried out, more startled than hurt, before he registered pain-pain from Roman friendly punching him (an awkward greeting that he and Dean sometimes initiated with each other) and pain from moving around so quickly. Of course Roman hadn't meant to hurt him; he didn't know. But _damn_ if Seth wasn't nearly in tears when he finally found his way to facing him.

"Startle you?" Roman said with an eyebrow raised. "Kinda looked like you were just flailing angrily for a moment there." Seth shook his head, pressing his lips together so hard they felt bruised. "Let's go get something to eat. I'm starving." Seth shook his head again. "N-nah. You go ahead. I'm not really hungry." He had been half-expecting his voice to come out as a squeak. "I'm just gonna hang here; take a nap, try to chill…"

_Try not to cry_.

"Alright. You want us to bring you anything? Dean said you were coming down with something," said Roman. Seth exhaled, blowing hair out of his face. "No, I'm fine. You guys go ahead."

So they did. And when Seth was sure that they had gone, he stripped off the shirt-the second he'd borrowed from Roman today; this one was clean, and he'd had to promise to do the laundry for him in order to get that shirt-and threw it across the bed, and let the artificially cool air from the AC waft across his bare back and rustle the tiny white feathers. They had perked up almost immediately, having been tamped down with sweat and the fabric from the shirt, and spread out gratefully in the fresh air, finally allowed to breathe. Seth shivered, but it didn't matter. For once the pain was gone, not dull or pinching. Gone.

It was the best nap of his life.

.

.

.

He dreamed of birds.

Of big, colorful ones with exotic sounding names and different shapes and sizes. Of small ones with little plain wings and feathers and common boring names. They flew around in frantic bursts, flying over one another in random motions and patterns, like a patchwork of birds. It was surreal, pretty, though it was a little jarring the way it felt as though they might fly right into Seth and scratch his eyes out. But there weren't just birds. Horses with wings-oh, what were they called? For the life of him, Seth couldn't remember what the horses with wings were called; _centaurs_?-came flapping into the mix, bursting through the colorful clouds of birds and eventually flying in the same strange flight pattern as they were, galloping through the air and chasing after the red tails of some parrots.

The haze of airborne creatures continued their dips and dives, freefalls and loop-the-loops for what seemed like an eternity, which Seth was completely content to watch. It was actually beautiful; he'd never seen anything like it when he'd been awake, especially not the flying horses (_ugh, satyrs_?). A thought popped into his head then: was he flying too? He could feel the wings beating all around him, the feathers grazing his cheek and the chirps and calls and whinnies carrying above his head, so did that mean that he was flying right along with them?

.

A clap of thunder ruined the scene. It happened so suddenly; one moment it had been a tranquil scene of colorful paradise and the in the next, birds were scrambling about, the happy chirps turned to frantic squawks, flying up and away, over his head where he couldn't see or catch them, and the winged horses (_Pegasus, aha_!) came barreling towards him, tongues lolling and legs straining, and as they neared they just didn't seem to want to stop…

.

.

.

Seth rolled over and opened his eyes, half expecting to be coughing up blood and mucus with a flurry of hoofprints trampled into his chest. Instead, he found himself staring at the popcorn ceiling of the hotel room, panting for breath like he'd just finished running a mile. He was fine. All of his blood and internal organs were still right where they needed to be, his ribs hadn't caved in, and there were no signs of exotic birds having been in the room. They were all gone. Strangely enough, however, Seth could still hear their frantic squawking echoing in his ears. What had set them off, he wondered. What had all of that meant?

He heard the door being opened, the click of a key card being accepted, the crinkle-thump of a plastic bag accidently bumping against the wood, low voices in the hall. He sat up as Roman and Dean walked in, carrying a white plastic bag of what looked like Chinese takeout boxes, and greeted him. "Hey, you're up! You okay though? You look a little pale."


	3. Growing Pains

Seth opened his eyes to darkness. Looking around, his eyes fell on the digital clock, and he felt a strange sense of déjà vu.

5:45.

He'd woken up to a pain in his back again-because that was how déjà vu worked-and rolled his tired eyes so far into his head he was sure that he could see his brain shooting sparks as it collapsed from exhaustion. Slowly, he scooted out of bed, wary of Dean sleeping in the bed across from him and hoping with everything he had that he didn't wake up again like he had the night before. God knew that had been a close call. He shuffled to the bathroom and chanced a stretch. He'd managed to stave off the pain for a short while before he'd gone to bed earlier by standing under the hot water in the shower until Dean had banged on the door and barked for him to hurry the hell up.

Turning on the light, Seth braved a glance into the mirror and…

Honestly didn't know what he was expecting. If anything, the little stumps had gotten bigger. Rather than looking like little powdery lumps, they now poked out of his back like two little tendrils. Seth thought they looked like tiny curled fingers-which was actually super gross-and wrinkled his nose at them. He knew what they were. He'd always known what they were-the feathers were a dead giveaway. He wasn't stupid, he was just in denial. He didn't want to believe he had wings growing out of his back, but they were there and they were just as real as he was; he'd proved that the first night when he experimentally pulled one of the small feathers out and nearly yelped at the sharp pain that followed (honestly, he had no idea what drove him to torture himself so).

There was still no answer as to where the things had come from. He'd dreamed again, but the only thing he'd gathered from it was that, for one, Pegasus-_pegasi_?-were damn cool, and two, he would probably grow to have either really colorful wings or really bland ones. Deep down, he kinda hoped for really cool colored ones. Hey, if there was no way to escape this, he may as well have some fun with it and get some sick looking jet black wings, the kind that were so black they looked dark violet or cobalt blue in the sunlight.

Seth sighed and took a pill. Then he turned off the light, crawled back into bed, made sure he covered his shoulders, and went back to sleep.

.

.

.

He dreamed of a little sparrow, flapping frantically on the ground. Its wing stuck out at an awkward angle, like it was broken, and the tiny thing was screaming its head off when Seth came close. He thought it might bite him, but when he went to pick it up and held it cupped in his hands, it quit its screaming, relapsed into a weak chirping and went quiet altogether. Dead.

.

Seth woke up again in an hour, wondering what it meant.

.

.

.

The car ride to Anaheim was like riding into hell. Seth glared over the windowsill through the window out into the country as it passed by in a blur of green grass and blue sky, and if you look to your right, you'll see Satan himself with his pitchfork, welcoming you into hell, you pitiful soul. Seth sighed and returned to his former position. He'd lying on his side in the backseat while Dean and Roman took up the front, listening to them talk about different kinds of barbecue sauces (Seth wasn't quite sure where that conversation had come from; they _had_ been talking about the new storyline with the '_powers-that be'_, so barbecue sauce was an odd transition that Seth hadn't been participating in at the time), while he absentmindedly pondered the wings and his dream, and nearly jumped out of his skin when a tiny pressure poked him in the back.

Turning awkwardly in the seat, Seth found Dean watching him expectantly. "What?"

"I said, do you want to stop for wings for lunch," Dean repeated, unfazed by the obliviousness of his friend and the odd angle he'd twisted himself into (so_ that_ was where the barbecue sauce conversation came from). The pain in his shoulders flared up again in protest to his contorting in the seat, but Seth didn't need the pain from the little stubs to tell Dean no, he didn't want wings for lunch. "How about a sandwich instead?"

.

.

.

Anaheim and Seth was starving and exhausted. He'd turned down wings, insisted on looking out the window, at his phone, at the back of the guy's head in the booth in front of them, anywhere but at Roman and Seth while they ate. He couldn't help feeling a little betrayed while they tore into their plates of barbecued wings, like, _hello? Insensitive to teammate with wings, much_? But he didn't mind. Tonight was show night, and catering would be set up, ready and waiting for him when they arrived at the venue. He'd been worried, actually, because if you hadn't noticed, he had a pair of fresh baby wings poking out of his back; one bump on the mat or belly-to-back suplex and he was done for. Finished. Pushing daisies. Seeing stars.

It was only a promo tonight, thank god. He'd sighed with relief when he'd gotten the script in the locker room. Just wait for your cue, come down, talk shit to Trips and Orton, kick ah hole in their metaphorical teeth and then split. Seemed easy enough.

So then why was Seth finding it so damn hard to get into the swing of things?

He couldn't wear the vest. It hurt the wings too much and frankly, he didn't think he could do a promo squirming and biting his lip and trying not to scream from the pain, and any plans to try and suffer through went out the window when he was told the promo was scheduled to last around ten minutes. Damn it all; he was just gonna have to wing it.

Heh, wing it.

So Seth borrowed-_man_, he was getting real sick of this, and Roman probably was at his limit as well, but he teased him, calling him a real fangirl for wanting so many articles of his clothing and loaned him a jacket-Roman's Hounds of Justice jacket and simply wore it without the usual black athletic wear shirt, zipping it up as far was it would go. When Dean saw him, he gave him an odd look, asked him if he was trying to break the rules or something. Seth shrugged. It wasn't his intent, no, but…

Regardless, he wore the jacket out to the ring, shot the promo, and resisted the urge to flat out shove Roman when he shook his shoulder while talking and unknowingly jostled the wings. Jesus, had his friends _always_ been this physical? When the promo was finished, he didn't join them in the locker room. He flew to catering and scarfed down anything his fingers landed on.

Except the wings.

.

.

.

Where did they get this stamina from?

And more importantly, what had happened to Seth's? He was lying in bed again, this time with the shakes and so much pain that he couldn't move. Dean and Roman had gone out somewhere, he didn't know where; was it possible to be in so much pain at a time that you can't hear a thing but the ringing in your ears?

The wings. They were throbbing, pulsing with stinging heat and sharp needles and hatchets. Seth lay curled on the bed, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and shaking with the thrumming agony that tore through him. He'd tried biting his lip, the inside of his cheek even, but when he'd started tasting the coppery tinge of fresh blood, he'd resorted to screaming into the sheets. Which felt a lot better than biting his lip until he bled or grinding his teeth until they turned to dust, and, hey, it took his mind off of the horrifying (super)natural beauty of human development that was growing pains. It had been this way for nearly ten straight minutes. The TV was on, but he couldn't hear it. Ten minutes into a Guitar Center Session episode and the pain still hadn't hit its peak until Seth was sure that bone had begun poking through skin.

Well, he wasn't wrong.

If he had seen what was really going on-the tiny pink stumps stretching and tearing through flesh and curling like gnarly demonic fingers, how red the skin was getting, and even what was going under the skin; bones splintering themselves and fusing back together, shifting around to make room for new appendages, cracking and popping, flexing and creaking and twisting -he probably would have passed out sooner.


	4. In Which There Are Wings

Seth woke again to something cool settling over his shoulders. He blinked his eyes open to mere slits, still rather exhausted, and tried to get a hold of his bearings. He couldn't remember what had even happened before he fell asleep, he was so out of it-let's see…there had been a pint of ice cream all but inhaled down his throat, a slight setback once a brain freeze had stubbornly settled into him, and Avenged Sevenfold had been working their way through a live performance on an episode of Guitar Center Sessions. Oh, wait, had he missed it? Shit, and he had actually been kind of looking forward to it, too. Had he just been so exhausted by wrestling with the new wings that had sprouted up on his back that he had passed out in much needed sleep?

Oh, wait. The wings.

Seth sat up quickly on his side, propped on one elbow, springing up like a sprout and startling the person behind him. The surprised yelp came from Dean, who had been sitting on the edge of the mattress behind Seth, and shocked Seth so thoroughly that his wings sprang to life, fluttering spastically and sending feathers dancing around them. Seth made a strangled noise at the sudden involuntary movement in his shoulders which meshed with Dean's loud string of curses as he fell backwards from the bed.

"What? What? What's going on-"

Seth looked up with a mix of terror and shock as Roman poked his head out from around the corner, most likely from the bathroom, words dying on his lips as he took in the scene. "Oh," he said rather simply, and Seth would've laughed-always the cool, collected one Roman was-if he hadn't currently been turning away to hide the wings from view. His heart was pounding in his chest so loudly that he barely heard Roman chuckle, "Too late for that. Looks like you've got some explaining to do."

.

.

"Why did you do this to yourself?"

Seth made a face. "Get real, man. You think I'd suddenly decide to sprout wings and make life a living hell for fun?"

He sat cross-legged on the bed, hid chin in one hand and the other hand absently playing with a stray feather. It looked like they had gotten bigger, no longer white and downy. They were beginning to look like actual bird feathers, fawn colored with strands of gold so fine they were barely noticed. Dean and Roman watched him with something like concern, disbelief and curiosity meshed into one expression that looked more like a grimace than anything remotely positive or encouraging. It made Seth feel like they thought of him as a freak now, a freak with wings growing out of his back.

"Hell, I don't know! I mean, how many people have you met who just up and grow wings out of nowhere?" said Dean, scrubbing his hand through his short hair. "I thought you'd gotten one o' those weird body mods or whatever. You're wacky enough to try."

Seth gave him a dull look. "Pot calling the kettle black, huh?"

"Anyway," Roman said a bit loudly to call attention back to the matter at hand, "When were you going to tell us?" At Seth's fidgeting look, he shrugged. "It's not like we wouldn't have found out sooner or later. How were you gonna hide a pair of wings for the rest of your life from us? And you know Dean never knocks anyway, so it wasn't like he was never going to walk in on you while they were out in the open." Dean shrugged his shoulders, shamelessly not denying Roman's accusation. Seth sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. "I don't know. I don't know anything at all. They just showed up one night and they've been growing ever since. I thought I was going crazy, but there's no way I'm imagining pain like this." Roman winced slightly, to which Seth quickly added, "They don't hurt all the time. Just when they were really little and growing out. I don't hurt at all now."

"How long have they been there?"

"Three days tops."

"And they're already that big?"

Seth furrowed his brow. He'd forgotten that he hadn't seen how much progress they'd made overnight. After that awful bout of growing pains and the initial shock with Dean earlier, he hadn't really gotten around to checking himself in the mirror. He slipped off the bed and ducked into the bathroom.

Seth was naturally tall-he liked to say about six feet and two inches tall-so that must make the wings about three feet in height now, almost half the size of him and covered in a mix of fully grown feathers and some late blooming down. They looked skinny, not quite as majestic as he had pictured them to be, but he figured with all the baby feathers still hanging around, the wings would still get bigger, and that both excited and terrified him. It was an odd emotion that he'd had a few go-rounds with before in his line of work, but never quite been exposed to when it came to sudden animal parts being grafted onto his body. Now it just felt kind of sickening, a morbid curiosity.

"So are you half-bird now?" was the first thing out of Dean's mouth when Seth returned. He sat back on his hands and smirked at the glare Seth sent his way, while Roman rolled his eyes at the comment. "How does this even happen?"

"I don't know. Maybe I was experimented on as a baby and genetically mutated with a falcon or an eagle or some shit-how should I know? I'm just as in the dark as you are," Seth said, dropping down on the mattress and drawing his knees to his chest. He nibbled on his lip for a moment in silence. "What did you think when you first saw them? The wings, I mean."

Roman shrugged. "Probably the same thing you did."

.

_"__Ohmygodwhatthefuck?"_

_Dean nearly dropped the plastic bag of coke bottles in his shock. He and Roman had just stepped out for a run to a closeby convenience store, intending to be back at the hotel room in five minutes, but had gotten caught up by a small group of fans that had been passing by. They'd already been gone for twenty minutes by the time they'd returned to find Seth asleep and…different._

_Roman followed in after him, drawn by the sudden outburst and froze when he saw Seth, stepping back in surprise. "What…"_

_The first thought-other than the obvious 'what the actual fuck is going on?'-was that Seth was growing wings from his back. Full-fledged wings, like an angel or something. The second was that they had walked in to find them on display, and something about discovering them without Seth knowing seemed…rude? Like, they had just leaned over his shoulder and read his texts or had been snooping around in his things. Like they weren't supposed to see this._

_But it was just a pesky feeling, nothing more than an odd thought._

_Dean edged towards the sleeping figure and warily poked the feathery wings, making a disgusted, squeamish sound as he did so. "Oh my god, that's so gross. They're real; I can feel the bones and everything."_

_Roman reached out, hesitated and drew back his hand, thought better of it, and gently shook Seth's shoulder. "Hey," he called out trying to wake him. He didn't miss the sheen of sweat that came away on his hand, coating Seth's skin, though it did take him longer to recognize Seth's ragged breathing. It sounded like he'd been running miles before he and Dean had even shown up. He tried to wake him again, this time calling out his name and jostling him with a little more force, but Seth, it seemed, was down and out for the count. _

_Roman's mind raced for what to do. There didn't seem like there was anything _to _do, except just let him sleep, if he could even call it that. This bordered on unconsciousness-Seth was never this hard to wake up; that was usually Dean._

_"__Hey," Roman nudged Dean and gestured to Seth, "help me move him." _

_Roman looped his arms under Seth's, careful to avoid touching the wings or getting a mouthful of feathers, and pried his teammates fingers from their death-grip around the covers, while Dean pulled the sheets out from under him. When they'd resettled him under the sheets, Dean folded his arms, looking uneasy and rightfully so. "What do we do now?"_

_Roman had asked himself that the moment he walked in and saw the wings sprouting from Seth's back, though he wasn't sure if he had a valid answer. He shook his head, sat back on the adjacent bed and watched the feathers rustle with each breath Seth took and the quiet whoosh of air from the AC. _

_"__We wait for him to wake up, I guess."_

.

Seth didn't raise his head from resting on his knees, arms folded across them. His eyes were downcast, turned deep ebony in thought, and a slight frown marring his features. Roman thought he looked like a brooding angel. Quietly, Seth said, "You guys don't think I'm a freak, do you?" Honestly, he wasn't feeling too great about his friends having found out about the wings sticking out of his back. He knew he would have to tell them sometime, but he hadn't wanted it to be so soon, and definitely not in the way they'd discovered them today.

"'Course not," was Dean's reply. "Okay, maybe a little, but that can't be helped. Sometimes things happen that we can't control and that's not our fault. We just have to work our way around it and stay calm. You'll still be Seth, the same two-toned weirdo who listens to his music too loud and spends way too much time in his weird fitness Zen wonderland at the gym, and a pair of chicken wings pokin' out yer back aint gonna change that."

Seth raised a dark eyebrow at him. "Wow, Dean. That was…strangely encouraging and seriously out-of-character of you," he said slowly. "I'm impressed. What Lifetime movie did you lift that from?"

Dean made a face and fell back on the bed. "Shut up. Who even watches Lifetime movies anyways? That came from here," he poked at his chest without sitting up.

"What? That empty cavity in your chest where a heart should be?" said Roman. Dean flipped him his middle finger and Seth laughed. His wings twitched at his back, still trying to get the hang of being alive and real, but Seth didn't mind. His brothers knew and they still accepted him. He would be okay.

.

He dreams again.

This time of a little boy holding a squeaking hummingbird tightly in his fist. He reaches out and pinches a fingerful of bright green feathers from the hummingbird's body, which sends the tiny creature into a fit. The boy's freckled face breaks out in a grin and he keeps plucking, more and more, until a green pile is gathered at his feet.

.

Seth wakes in the morning, feeling wary and unsettled.


End file.
